The year 2001-02 saw the establishment of 12/twelve Self – Financing Engineering Colleges in Kerala. The Managements of these 12/twelve colleges met at Kothamangalam in June 2001, it was decided to form an Association to address the common concerns of the colleges. They unanimously elected Dr. G.P.C. Nayar, as President, Late Fr. Joseph Puthenkulam as Secretary of the newly formed Kerala Self Financing Engineering College Managements’ Association (KSFECMA).

Milestones, Parleys, Discussions & Decisions
May 2001 – Met then Chief Minister Mr. A K Antony. 50% seats were considered as merit (Govt.) seats and a fee of Rs.1200 was collected annually from the students allotted on merit. The balance 50% were considered as payment seats had a fee of Rs, 50,000/- per annum, along with rupees one lakh as refundable deposit.

2001 – As plea for management quota of seats was rejected, the managements of the private unaided institutions approached the Honorable court. The Honorable High Court was approached to get at least 15% seats as given to aided sector in Kerala. The Court granted us 15% seats with a freedom to fill with our own choice of students.

2002 - Professor C.I. Abdul Rahiman, Director of KMEA Engineering College succeeds Fr.Joseph Puthenkulam as the secratary. The same year, 10 more colleges came up taking the total to 22.

2002 - The TMA Pai Foundation case was decided by the Honorable Supreme Court of India with an epoch making judgement. In the land mark 11 Member Bench judgement, the Court declared in no uncertain terms that education is a vocation as defined in the Constitution and every citizen in the country has a fundamental right to start an educational institution, fix its own fees and admit students of its own choice. The only restriction imposed on the individual was that the fee should be reasonable and devoid of any element of capitation. In the case of admission the Court said that the admission should be transparent and merit based.

This was followed by another judgement by a five Member Bench Court in the Islamic Academy vs. State of Karnataka case. According to this judgement the Court said that the State can appoint an Admission Supervisory Committee and a Fee Regulatory Committee to regulate and oversee that the institution charges only reasonable fee and do not resort to capitation or accept any other type of funds from the students and admission process is merit based and transparent. While many States appointed two separate committees Kerala had only a joint committee for both the functions.

Justice K.T. Thomas, retired judge of the Supreme Court of India was appointed the first Chairman of the Joint Committee in Kerala. At a meeting convened by him at Kottayam he promised to fix a reasonably good fee for all colleges under the association.(KSFECMA) at certain terms. Unfortunately he fixed a uniform fee of Rs. 38,500/- per annum per student of engineering. As this fee was too inadequate to maintain any level of quality in an engineering college, KSFECMA, filed an appeal in the High Court to revise the fee to a much higher level.

2003 - Meanwhile, the CM changed and the new CM Shri Oommen Chandy promised to bring a new bill to solve the problem. So KSFECMA institutions were forced to charge a fee of Rs.38,500/- for 2003 –2004 period.

2004 - The Bill passed by the Assembly in 2004 was also not acceptable to us as it fixed a fee of Rs.1200/- for 50% students and for the balance 50% seats the Managements were allowed to charge any fee that they thought appropriate. This Act was totally unacceptable to our Association for two reasons:

1. It was basically against the Supreme Court judgement which specifically stated that there should not be two kinds of fees. Fees should be uniform for all students. Two different kinds of fee will amount to one section subsidizing another and it is against natural justice.

2. The second reason was that it was not possible for the Managements to fix any fee for 50% students as the society will reject it and KSFECMA would earn ill will of people as exploiters who a sapping the students and parents of money. KSFECMA wanted to clean the much tarnished image of Self Financing Private Institutions.

KSFECMA wanted to call to notice the fact that members of KSFECMA had invested around Rupees 1,00,000 crore in the state during the last ten years. KSFECMA provided direct employment to nearly three lakh people and helped generate indirect employment to another two lakh people. KSFECMA took professional education to villages as most of our colleges were in villages and created an awareness in villages on the need for providing job oriented education to their children. With persistent efforts the Govt. of India persuaded the banks to give education loan to all deserving candidates so that no bright student will be denied an opportunity to study. KSFECMA prevented the flow of students and money to the tune of nearly 1800 crores every year to neighbouring States by providing facilities locally.

2005 - The Act passed by the Ommen Chandy Govt. was challenged in the Kerala High Court by KSFECMA. Lawyers like Mr. Anthyarjurna Mr. Vivek Tanka, Mr. Nagesware Rao, Mr. Rohinton Nariman, Mr. Romy Chacko, Mr. Kurian George Kannanthanam represented us. The case was decided in KSFECMA favour and allowed the institutions to follow K.T. Thomas Committee fee structure for one more year.

2006 - The LDF Government came back to power in 2006 with Mr. Achuthanandan as Chief Minster and Mr. M.A. Baby as Minister for Education. Yet another phase of battle started from day one. On hearing that the Minister is planning to bring in a new Act to control the self financing sector KSFECMA met him as a delegation. By the time the strength of our Association had increased from 10 in 2001 to 52 in 2005.

The meeting wasn’t fruitful as the plea to be heard was disregarded. And KSFECMA was kept in the dark about the bill to be presented.
The Act came as a shock robbing managements of any rights to even a seat in the institutions. By the time all good colleges had invested more than 30 crores and were struggling for resources.

The Act was challenged in the High Court. Again KSFECMA retained accomplished lawyers from the Supreme Court to represent the case. The Court struck down all major sections of the Act and we came back to square one.

Another round of negotiations and a sort of a settlement was arrived at when a case filed by a student challenging the agreement was decided in his favour and managements were left with no option but to fix their own fee in 2006-07, knowing all too well that the public will not like it.

2007- In the year 2007-08 the Association negotiated with the Govt. a mutually agreeable fee structure and without the intervention of the Court things have been moving smoothly ever since.

In the year 2006-07 when the new Act of LDF Govt. came into force ten colleges coming under the Catholic Management decided to form a separate Association and go ahead with independent admission and fee fixation process. In fact, they decided to exercise the powers given to self financing sector by the Supreme Court of India through its three land mark judgements in Vis. TMA Pai Foundation case, Islamic Academy case and PA Inamdar Case. They openly told the Association that they plan to device their own admission process and fee fixation. However, they continued the membership with our Association.

2010 - KSFECMA takes pride from the fact that KSFECMA Alumni who migrated to Gulf increased the expatriate remittance from 18,000 crores in 2004 to 56,000 crores in 2010. This has in turn helped to raise living standards of families back in India.
Dr. G.P.C Nayar is founder President from 2001. Prof. C.I. Abdul Rahiman is our Secretary from 2002 and continued up to September 2010 as they are elected as President and Secretary of National Federation.

National Recognition
In recognition of the exemplary performance of the President and Secretary of our Association the National Federation of Unaided Professional Colleges in India unanimously elected Dr. G.P.C. Nayar as President and Prof. Abdul Rahiman as Secretary General. The Federation has 8300 member institutions spread over 21 States in the country. These appointments come as a great recognition to the State Association and the people of the State.